For i: Code Editor for the iPad | Hacker News Reader

For i: Code Editor for the iPad

itunes.apple.com

25 pointsMaysonL32 comments

This isn't really anything to write home about. It's just a syntax-colored text editor. Let me know when someone rolls out an expression tree editor designed for touch screens; or I'll let you know when I finally get around to it...

I've got another project I'm working on at the moment, but I expect that to go stable/released soon.

This idea has been very interesting to me for some time now. Drop me a line if you actually start working on this and are looking for a collaborator.

Something like "Scheme Bricks", maybe?

http://www.pawfal.org/dave/index.cgi?Projects/Scheme%20Brick...

Might be obvious, but would love to see the code displayed with a monospaced font.

Why an iPad + For i when a netbook + emacs is cheaper, has longer battery life, can have built-in 4G networking, and so on?

If you want to do real work with a computer, get a real computer, not an overpriced novelty.

Which netbooks have better battery life? I have trouble getting 2 hours out of my Eee. I guess you can lug around a 9-cell battery, but damn.

I have an Eee 1005PE. I've never run out of battery before, so I don't know what the actual life is, but the indicator says 12 hours. That's with 3G/4G and the backlight reasonably bright. Without radio or bright backlighting, it's more like 16. (And it's not a 9-cell battery, either.)

(One problem with netbooks is that they cut corners to be cheap. I would like to see what a non-corner-cutting netbook could do. The Macbook Air is pretty close.)

Huh. I have the same model, and I generally get around eight hours, albeit on Arch, not the included Windows 7. Are you using Windows 7? If so, it might be a good idea to reinstall it ...

Yes, I'm using Windows. Because there are no 4G drivers for Linux yet. (OK, Intel has drivers, but there are no products that include Intel's chipset... so...)

Well, they would have better battery life if someone would build one.

The ultimate coding/writing machine for me would be a full-size Lenovo chassis/battery with a 7 inch screen and a 500mhz arm CPU.

Plus maybe some solar panels on the back of the screen so I could conceivably go a summer without plugging it in.

I'm seriously considering hacking one out of one of the cheapo Android tablets, but if Lenovo would just release the Skylight already I'd just buy one of those and probably plug a real keyboard into it.

Do you have one of the older models? I owned a 701 when they first came out, and I don't remember very good battery life, but the technology was new and I've heard recent models have much better life.

Sounds cool, but how does it access the files? Does it support SFTP to edit files on a server?

I was really hoping for drop box or git integration...

Just don't do any work with it:

"(ii) You shall be authorized to use the Products only for personal, noncommercial use."

http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html

I'm pretty sure that that's meant to apply to music/video bought from iTunes, not the use of boughten apps

That's not what Apple say (if you believe this blog):

http://ursecta.com/wp/2009/08/anything-but-games-are-illegal...

A quote from one of the linked articles (The Register) at the bottom:

"Apple is reminding customers that applications sold through the iTunes store are strictly for non-commercial use: business use is forbidden, which makes one wonder what that section of the store is for."

There are quite clearly a large number of applications in the app store that only have a business use. Apple have happily allowed them in the app store.

I'm sure this is taken out of context.

Notice that the Apple rep makes absolutely no mention of applications. I feel that there is a big misunderstanding going on here.

Oh, possibly. The entire conversation with Apple was based around the author of the post purchasing an application though. He repeats that point several times.

Perhaps the situation has been clarified since then.

App Store's terms and conditions are there: http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/appstore/us/terms.html If you are not in US you can find yours there: http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/

And I can't see any non-commercial term in there.

Well, I wasted 10 minutes reading this stuff. And it seems like they do have separate terms for the App Store and the "iTunes Store".

However when I open iTunes to actually purchase an application, accessing the section for buying applications is very clearly done through the label "iTunes Store", and the status bar even shows "Accessing iTunes Store" as it goes to retrieve the list of applications. The emails I receive that contain invoice information also come from the "iTunes Store", so it would seem to me that at least if you buy them through desktop iTunes, and not directly on the device, you are bound by the iTunes Store terms of use and cannot use them for commercial purposes. For apps bought on the device it seems to only display "App Store", although I do notice emails that contain invoices still seem to come from "iTunes Store". So I would say it is highly ambiguous in that case, but based on this I would definitely buy these apps "on the device" rather than through iTunes.

Aside from the custom keyboard (which seems to not always be on screen? See: the third image.) and syntax highlighting that looks rather ugly, for i is rather sparse on features. Not something that I'd pay $10 for yet.

Looks very unpromising, there is however huge potential for a text editor on the ipad. Don't think we're quite there yet.

I was actually considering getting an iPad + bluetooth keyboard for remote (web) coding. Ditched the idea because the available "IDEs" are not yet very matured (bought a MacBook instead). I'm sure this will change in future. An IDE for web coding could be even implemented as a browser app, as long as you do the sftp stuff in server side. Full keyboard support (shortcuts for everything) is major requirement, because you want to keep your fingers on your bluetooth keyboard. Not a problem for web app, though.

Oh, and you won't really need integrated development environment if Apple enabled multitasking for every app + makes possible to switch application on external keyboard (i.e. support for cmd+tab). Then separate apps would do fine.

when you start having to carry around the ipad and a keyboard.. whats the difference between that and a netbook now.. where you will have a much easier time running applications.. example most of us would probably like a browser and ide at the same time... on an ipad this is a major PITA.

A netbook? Apple doesn't make one :-) The point is that I'm going to have the iPad anyway and was thinking if it could replace a laptop, because I avoid carrying multiple devices.

Not impressed at all. We started looking into building one ourselves and we started working on the ftp part of it, but then we got slammed with clients stuff so it ended up in the back burner. I'm waiting to see a Coda for iPad, that would be awesome.

What does it do besides being a text editor with a sytax highlighter ?

seriously need to do something about the logo

I can help make a better logo.

I can't see how this is useful at all, you can't run the code, so who cares?

I'd be more interested in a code editor that you can _run_ code in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com